snippets
I cut Seppo’s hair for the first time on Saturday. It turned out nicer than I thought it would. I’ll post pics at some point. 😀 We took off a whole lot. Seppo says that may admiration of my own handiwork is “unseemly”. Heh.
I got to chat with my cousin for the first time in years! It was really great to get back in touch with family. I’ll have to tell my other cousin out here about him. 🙂
Turns out that my other cousins (yet another set) might move to Atlanta. That would be really nice because then my sister’s kids could grow up with the babies in the other family, as they are roughly the same age.
Court invalidates California’s ban on same-sex marriage
Good job, Kramer!
In his 27-page decision, Kramer – an appointee of former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican – said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates “the basic human right to marry the person of one’s choice,” and has no rational justification.
Rejecting California Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s argument that California is entitled to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, Kramer said the same explanation was offered for the state’s ban on interracial marriage, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1948.
The judge also rejected arguments by opponents of same-sex marriage that the current law promotes procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. “One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry,” Kramer said.
seven years
And no itch! 😀 Today is Seppo and my seven year anniversary. Yay! 🙂 I love that man.
I had a bunch of updates, but I had to reboot before I got to save it because of some horrible computer problems. My laptop has been plaguing me and my IT department for a full solid week now. It is humiliating, as well as frustrating, because I’m sure they think I’m doing something to my computer and not telling them about it. The typical user error and PEBKAC* condition.
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The last few weeks have been full of great food and company. It was kicked off by a dinner at Alan & Becky’s house. We were inspired by the delicious food (I was really impressed by their fantastic use of ginger, which I’m really clueless about) and the fun we had eating together (I hope we can get a real table one day), so Seppo and I have been on a roll recently. Holly came up for Presidents’ Day Weekend, and we lazed about, mainly indoors because of the rain. It was so good to see her. Even when I haven’t seen her in a while, I feel like I can say whatever to her and she’ll understand. She’s really awesome. Seppo & I made our first “plated” dinner for a small group of people who had come over to see Holly.
That was followed by a 1-yr anniversary celebration of the day that Mobi joined our household. Shush! I don’t want to hear it. Heh. We invited Seppo’s mom over for dinner, and she brought over a little fluffy bunny for Mobi.
Last week, Lindsi invited us over for some of that mochi chicken for dinner. It was so good that I must have eaten a good pound and a half by myself. Damn, that is some good chicken. We invited her and D over for dinner on Sunday evening, and served french bread with some truffle cheese, reduced balsamic vinegar, and two pestos (sun-dried tomato and basil) for appetizers, and parmesan-crusted salmon with asparagus and mashed potatoes (garnished with a parmesan crisp) and salad for the main meal. Oh yes, the pestos were for the main dish but we had so much left over that I served it with the bread. I think it would have been improved had we served the salmon with a squeeze of lemon or a splash of white wine during cooking to give it a little brightness. Possibly, the reduced balsamic could have replaced the sun-dried tomato pesto for the same reason. Anyway, we are still working out the kinks. It was really nice sitting back with them for a while and hanging out. So much fun.
We also went to dinner with Sean and Hoa to a very tasty small Japanese restaurant in San Carlos. Eat eat eat. Chomp chomp chomp. Man, they are fun to chill with.
Next week, we are making dinner for Alex and Tracy, I think. The date hasn’t been finalized yet, but he agreed to it already, so too bad. Heh. Gotta figure out what to cook though.
Seppo’s dad is coming in to town today, so we are going to have dinner with them on Saturday. His b-day just passed, so we better go buy something tomorrow. Eek!
*Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.
habits
No, this is not an entry about my joining the nunnery or anything. I have finally broken my dvd buying habit. I’ve weaned myself off the incessant book-buying too. On top of that, I’ve even broken my Survivor habit. Yay! Unfortunately, the AI habit rages on, taking over more and more of my weekday life. I just know it will be on five times a week at some point.
I call Bo to win this season.
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Yesterday, I went to the big shopping center in Walnut Creek with Uyen. It was a gorgeous day, so we ate lunch outside and generally lazed about. It was a good time. We found out much too late that Nordstrom’s was having a fashion show and makeover demos all day long. The first floor was littered with little makeup stations and people getting makeup tips. I am bummed I missed it.
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We took Mobius to the beach today. He’s a good doggy companion for us. I hope he learns to swim one day.
review
I just had my first review at my new (as of last June) job. I lucked out in that I didn’t have to wait a full year for my review, as the company had just moved to a single date for all employees.
I had been somewhat nervous about it, not because I suffer from some job confidence issues, but because I was worried that people had not had sufficient opportunity to experience my awesome greatness. Hee. I kid. I really was worried because I had been working in somewhat of a vacuum for a while on my own subproject, so I was not getting a lot of feedback on if what I was doing was even marginally on the correct path or not, and I assumed that other people were probably wondering if I was doing anything at all.
It turns out that everyone left me alone because somehow I had proven myself enough early on that they felt comfortable with me taking over without any help. My manager showed me the write-up that my ex-manager did before his last day, and it was, in a word, glowing. I frankly could not believe how good everything sounded on paper. There was even a random comment about my sense of humor. Weird. My current manager even told me that management team could not think of a single area of improvement for me. Whoa. No way. I could think of like ten right off. In fact, I did list some things in my self-assessment feedback.
Yay! I am so happy.
context
Man, I really hope I quote this right:
God! How close can I get to the booty without actually being able to grab it?! — Seppo while playing some video game involving loot
I laughed until I cried.
congratulations
Remarks by Governor Howard Dean Accepting the Chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee
Well done, Dean. I look forward to you kicking some booty as DNC chair. Just dropped a $50 contribution to the DNC as a show of support, which hurt a tiny bit less because I just got my state tax returns deposited to my checking account this morning. 😀
word
I’ve made up a new word. I googled it and I’ve checked the urban dictionary, and I don’t see it mentioned anywhere. So here it is: nerditia.
It is just what it sounds like: a militia-like group of nerds, or an organized group of nerds. Here is an example: “Tipped off by Slashdot that there was a free-after-mail-in-rebate TiVo + satellite dish + dishwasher + star wars dvd box set combo on sale, the nerditia descended upon Fry’s Electronics and stripped it bare.”
weekend update with ei-nyung and seppo
I guess we just don’t have the patter of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. I’ll live, I think.
We’ve really been on a cooking binge. Tonight, Seppo made a mushroom sausage risotto and bittersweet chocolate-dipped strawberries, and I made a butterflied chicken with a mushroom leek stuffing. The risotto is for later in the week, but we had the chicken and strawberries tonight. I’ve never butterflied chicken before, but DAMN, it made for a juicy, flavorful chicken with an ultra-crispy skin due to the much higher oven temperature that butterflying allows. I wish I had known the secret of brining + patting the skin dry + butterflying much earlier in life. Our subscription to Cook’s Illustrated has really been paying off.
My sister told me that she’s going to put her house up for sale (or possibly rent, depending on the market) a week after lunar new year. Lunar new year is February 9th this year! The mind boggles. I’m pretty excited, but trying not to get my hopes up too much in case things fall through. The plan, if things go the way we want, will be that she will move to the Atlanta house with the two kids soon afterwards, then her husband will come join her when he sells the factory. I’m amazed that they somehow got the in-laws to go along with this without a fight.
If my sister moves to the US, my life will change drastically in one way. We’ve already discussed that she and her husband will buy the Atlanta house from me — not right away, but in a couple of years after they are established. My sister wants to pay me rent starting right away, but I told her that I’d rather see her build up her savings a little first so that she and her hubby can be relatively stable before kicking in on the house. I think all of us are so used to living paycheck-to-paycheck that I’d really like them to be able to build up a little nest egg. And once they buy the house from me, or start paying me rent, I too can start back up on my savings, which I have been robbing from quite a bit lately. Then Seppo and I will be able to breathe a little easier.
It’s funny; it’s not like we are entirely broke or can’t go have a nice dinner once in a while or buy a dvd or video game or save up for a nice gift. We can do that easily. I think it’s just that having such a huge combined debt always makes us feel like any spare cash we have has to be thrown into our second mortgages, so we never have a comfortable amount of savings, which is more than a little scary. It’s also difficult to visualize a future where we can afford to have children or afford to not have roommates.
I think I can swing a trip over to see my mom and bros (and maybe my sister and her kids by then) in July, after attending a wedding in Philly at the end of June. My mom is going to consign her friend to make my wedding dress, so my homework is to try on a bunch of different styles and check out fabrics ahead of time so that when I go visit, I can get measured and pick out a design for her to make. We are planning for her to make it really early and maybe slightly big, then send it out here many many months in advance (I’m thinking like 3/4 a year), so that I can get it altered for a final fit locally, or possibly dump it altogether if it turns out weird or something. Heh. My mom called today, all worried that she won’t be able to be here long enough ahead of time before the wedding to help out, but I assured her that one week will be fine for her participation. I better tell her soon that Seppo’s mom plans to do the flowers, since my mom also had a florist shop for several years. The battle of the moms wouldn’t be such a fun event, I think.
I feel a little hectic at work, but I think I’m not too far behind. I worry a little that I’m out of my depth, but I think I always feel like this at this phase of any project, and I haven’t actually screwed anything up too badly yet, so I guess I’m ok.
We saw The House of Flying Daggers yesterday at the Parkway, with Colin, Joe T, Uyen, and Charles. It was a visually and aurally stunning movie. There were some elements that I think the general audience might find to be cheesy or overly dramatic, but I felt that they fit in perfectly with the emotionally wrenching tone of the story. They are entirely different movies, but I feel like this movie and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind share a lot in the way of hyper-visualization of inner emotional conflict and in the way that they were just simply beautiful to look at.
We just acquired a free blue/green leather couch in fairly good condition. It’s several years old but had been babied by the former owner, so it is in good shape. And it is oh-so-comfortable. I keep falling asleep on it. The best part is that dog hair doesn’t stick to it.